The Missing Pieces
by bailey80
Summary: A collection of one shots: missing scenes, episode continuations, reflections and the occasional speculation on upcoming episodes. All about Booth & Brennan.
1. The Bod in the Pod

_Author's Note: Because I thought Arastoo was a jerk in The Signs in the Silence and I've never quite forgiven him for that. _

The Confusion in the Conversation

It had all started very innocently.

An off-the-cuff remark.

A flippant comment.

A rational, factual statement.

Brennan honestly had no idea the turmoil it would cause. That her words would lead to an avalanche of emotion, of unspoken fears. She thought her years of always saying the wrong thing in the wrong moment were over. Being with Booth had taught her, had made her more aware of the feelings of those around her. But maybe it hadn't been enough.

Booth had actually been the one to start it. She had seen the flicker of recognition, the sly smile shared between him and his former lover. It had made her think that it was okay. And the words had been out of her mouth before either of them could send her a look to let her know that she was about to say something wrong.

It had been well over a year since they'd all gathered like this. Before Christine, back when Michael wasn't sleeping and Angela and Hodgins would've done anything for a few minutes of peace, for a night of adult company. Before Pelant, before all that had changed between them, had made them stronger. Had made her feel as if she could say anything without repercussion.

Tonight was different. There were new ties between them, new information to process, or not process in her case. Wendall and Hodgins had been talking about the past.

About Angela.

And Cam had asked if it wasn't strange, if it wasn't hard to continue their relationship at work. The two men had shrugged; Wendell admitted he had always known that the feelings were never as real as they should have been.

And that's when it happened. That's when her brain made the simple connection between their circumstances just as Booth and Cam shared a smile. She had no reason to believe that it wouldn't be okay to speak her thoughts.

"It's never been weird between you and I, Cam."

It was hard to say which face went ashen first: Cam's or Arastoo's. Angela let out a small gasp. Hodgins attempted to mumble something to change the subject, but in that instant his voice seemed unintelligible and went unnoticed at the table. Booth and Wendell exchanged glances. They were as confused as Brennan.

Arastoo had made the connection quickly himself. As soon as Brennan uttered the words, he understood. He got it. He was a fool. How? All these years working together. All these months of being with her. Of being in love and not only had he never known, never noticed anything between them, but she'd never bothered to tell him. He excused himself from their table, throwing a few bills down by his drink as he walked away from the group. Both Cam and Booth calling out to him, the latter having figured out what was going on.

Wendell was the first to speak. Directing his words toward the pathologist, he asked, "You and Arastoo?"

"I don't understand what's going on," Brennan's voice was concerned. Her brain was running a mile a minute, trying to figure out what mistake she had made.

"Hey, Cam, she didn't know. We didn't know," Booth made her apologizes for her.

"No, it's okay, it's not her fault." Snapping back to reality she turned toward Brennan, "It's not your fault. You didn't know. We didn't want anyone to know."

Their gathering had broken up after that. Each person made their own excuse for why they needed to leave the restaurant. Booth lead her out of the door and into the cold night air after placing his jacket around her, having realized she had left her own at the lab. They didn't speak about it.

X

X

X

X

The next morning she couldn't get the image of Cam's face out of her mind. How she had paled at the comment as soon as it had escaped from Brennan's lips. She found herself walking, almost unconsciously; into Cam's office to offer an apology that she had been told wasn't necessary.

"I meant what I said last night Dr. Brennan, it wasn't your fault. You didn't even know that Arastoo and I were together."

"Were?" Brennan didn't like the sound of the past tense.

"He won't answer my calls."

"I don't understand why Mr. Vaziri became upset. Your relationship with Booth has been over for several years. It doesn't bother me. And Hodgins said last night that he wasn't threatened by the relationship that Angela had with Wendell."

"The problem is that I should have been the one to tell him. And that's not your fault. I should have told him months ago. Since he heard it from someone else, he's afraid that there is a reason that I was trying to hide it from him."

"But he heard it from me. If I'm not upset, then he shouldn't be either. Aren't we in the same position?"

"No, no. You aren't in the same position at all."

"Yes, we are."

"No, you don't doubt Booth's love for you. You've believed in that even before you believed in love. Before you let yourself love him back. Arastoo and I, we didn't have that. Not yet. He didn't have that foundation. Our love was still full of doubt and confusion and fear."

"I'm sorry Cam. Even though I realize that it wasn't necessarily my fault. I am still the one who spoke. If I hadn't then this wouldn't have happened. I'm sorry."

"I appreciate your apology. But perhaps if this is all it took to break us, then it wasn't going to work out anyway."

As the other woman walked away, Brennan couldn't shake the pang of guilt that still coursed through her. Those feelings were still in charge when she saw Mr. Vaziri on the platform.

He resisted entering her office but she was insistent and he knew better than to argue with his mentor.

"I was not aware that you were pursuing a relationship with Dr. Saroyan."

The intern simply nodded, focusing his eyes anywhere but on her as she continued to speak. "I'm sorry that you feel threatened by the knowledge that Cam had a relationship with Booth. I would assume that you knew that she had prior sexual partners. I do not understand your feelings but-"

He cut her off then, all his fear, his anger, directed toward her, "But what? Some of us aren't unfeeling drones, okay? Some of us care when we've been lied to. It hurts that someone we trusted with our hearts could think so little as to 'forget' to ever tell us that they had an intense love affair with someone that they still see every day. Someone that I have to see every day. I can't live with that lie. I can't carry on with that fear."

The rage spewing out of Arastoo seemed to have a force of its own, knocking Brennan a few steps backwards as he spoke. But she didn't blink. Didn't flinch as she listened to him continue to berate her. "You're so sure. But what if? What if Agent Booth is only with you because he couldn't have her? What if you're his second choice?"

"Because I'm not. Booth loves me. He says that you can love a lot of people in your life. But you will always love one person the most."

"But I bet he used to tell her the same thing. I bet he used the exact same line with her."

Brennan was frightened by the hatred that spilled out of her student with each word but there was only one thing in this world she was certain of and no amount of fear would change that.

"No, I know what they had. And it wasn't the same. You can call me whatever names you'd like. You're welcome to think of me as someone devoid of any emotion. But, that's not true. You don't know anything about me. And you do not need to. And nothing you can say, nothing anyone can say, and nothing anyone could've done before will change what I know about how much Booth loves me. I know their past, and that's all it is. The past."

"And that's the difference, isn't it? You knew. She didn't bother to tell me. Why didn't she care enough to tell me?"

Tears glistened in his eyes and try as she might Brennan couldn't find the words to disprove his earlier comments. She wasn't a drone but she had no idea how to comfort someone who was hurting in a way that she didn't comprehend. So she said the only rational thing that she could think of, "Ask her."

Brennan had no idea that what she had said had been exactly right.

X

X

X

X

Arastoo sought Cam out this time. They talked. For hours. They cried, and they fought and they eventually came to an understanding. Their relationship continued but it was still tentative. Different than before. Once one partner perceives a deception, love never truly returns to where it was before. They were both painfully aware of this. But still they clung to the hope that sometimes, sometimes it comes back stronger. Cam had told him everything. Not only about her relationship with Booth but also about Brennan's. Details and hurts and parts of the narrative that he hadn't known. How had he thought they had, had it easy? How did he ever assume that their lives were simple, unencumbered by the pain that he had been feeling?

For weeks Arastoo avoided being alone with Dr. Brennan. He knew how wrong he had been. He knew he deserved to be asked to leave The Jeffersonian for the way he had spoken to her. He felt as if he spent every day just waiting on the other shoe to drop. But that was something about Dr. Brennan that he didn't understand either. He didn't understand how easily she could separate the personal from the professional. The very trait he needed that would've spared all of them these weeks of grief and mistrust. He didn't know that she didn't keep grudges. Grudges were not rational.

After his conversation with Cam, he watched Dr. Brennan differently. He watched her on the platform, watched her handle the remains and work the cases but he just couldn't didn't see it. He couldn't reconcile Cam's words with the professional in front of him.

But then, they tried again. A month had passed when Cam first mentioned it. Another get-together. A birthday party for Michael Vincent. They were expected to attend and besides, Cam wanted to go. Still reeling from the fragility of their relationship, Arastoo wasn't sure. Refusing her seemed just as dangerous as going, as being around their group outside of work, something he had studiously avoided since that night.

But they went. Each holding a gift for the bouncing two year old, they were let into the Hodgins' townhouse by a smiling Angela. She directed them to the backyard where the rest of their team were gathered. And that's when he began to understand. He watched Brennan even more carefully than he had been at the lab. Watched as she made a plate of food for Booth's son; then stole a French fry off of the curly headed little boy's plate while tending to her daughter, an action that had earned her a giggle from the boy. Watched as she took a seat in Booth's lap because they had ran out of chairs, as she laughed with a childlike innocence when the agent whispered a secret into her ear.

He gasped with the others watching when Christine toddled a little too closely to the edge of the swimming pool, when she cried out as she fell, just inches from the water and scraped her knee on the concrete. Brennan lifted her into the air, tending to both her knee and her pride at the same time and had her daughter laughing out loud within minutes with the practiced ease of a mom. He saw Parker run over to check on his sister and thought how strange the name Temperance sounded as he heard it shouted by the child.

He got it. He had been a fool to ever believe that Booth was a threat to his relationship. And an even bigger fool for directing his fear toward the anthropologist, for striking below the belt and accusing her of being exactly what she always feared she was. He knew now. He knew better. And so he apologized. She simply nodded and said that she understood why he thought the way that he did, even as he assured her that he never truly thought that she was unfeeling.

Booth watched as they spoke, staying just out of earshot. Ready to pounce if he saw her face fall. She hadn't told him what had happened between her and the intern, but he knew that her feelings had been hurt. Because only Booth really understood how closely under the surface Brennan kept those feelings, how easily they were damaged. And she couldn't hide the hurt from him, even if she never spoke of it; it was always there, evident on her face, though only to him. But her partner didn't need to worry. She was able to take care of herself. This he knew, though it didn't stop him from wanting to protect her from a world that didn't understand her.

She introduced Arastoo to her daughter, the little girl babbling while she chewed on a stuffed monkey that her mother said was the only thing that really soothed her mouth since she had started teething. He held the baby while Brennan helped her big brother find his way to the bathroom inside of the massive townhouse. And when she thanked him, he apologized again. And this time she accepted.

Booth and Cam joined them at a table and though the conversation was anything but easy, it was enough. Enough to let the healing begin, to let the forgiveness sink in for everyone. And for now Arastoo let himself believe that they just might come out of this stronger after all.


	2. The Shot in the Dark

She could hear Booth.

She could hear him shouting commands for her to fight.

She had never understood why people did that. She couldn't keep herself alive. Did he think that she could? She couldn't do anything but lay there; her fate solely in the hands of those who were pushing her down the hallway so quickly that she could only see the blur of the lights passing above her.

She could tell he'd turned his attention from her to the paramedics. He was demanding they tell him what the numbers they were shouting meant. The paramedic that answered him hadn't lied. She had lost a lot of blood.

She had heard the numbers too but she didn't need to be told what they meant. That they meant that she was in hypovolemic shock. Her blood pressure dangerously low because there weren't enough blood cells left in her circulatory system. Her heart rate too high because the muscle was working overtime to attempt to push blood that didn't exist anymore; blood that was now lying on the floor of the bone room.

Booth was focused on her again, shouting at her, commanding her attention, and she struggled to find him. Focusing her eyes was nearly out of her control and her head lolled of its own free will to the side, and suddenly he was there. Her eyes met his, but the image was blurry. Her brain foggy as her neurons were firing much too slowly, struggling to communicate with one another because of the loss of blood. But Still he was there.

She saw him. She studied his face, committing it into her failing memory even as scenes from the past made their way to the surface. Everything she loved danced behind her half lidded eyes; visions of moments past. And Booth was the center of them all.

But her vision of him dimmed as her eyes closed against her will. His face becoming became smaller and smaller as her eyelids approached her suborbital rims until they met and he disappeared.

And when she finally opened her eyes again, he wasn't there anymore.


	3. The Fact in the Fiction

_**Set sometime after the time travel episode. Thanks to Natesmama for the quick beta job!**_

* * *

"If I could travel back in time I would go back four years and taken a chance with you the moment I saw you. Now that I know how well it works out. How about you?"

Angela snickered, causing Cam's face to turn red and garnering Hodgins' attention.

"Wait, what's going on here?" Hodgins asked.

"I'd like to have tea with Jesus," Cam quickly covered.

"You're lying," Arastoo realized. "We promised no lying."

"Fine. When this question was first posited I may have had another answer." She stopped talking but held eye contact with the intern.

"Okay." He nodded at her to continue.

"Fine. I said that I would like to go back in time and have another night with an old lover."

"What? Are you kidding me? I want more time with you but you want more time with someone it obviously didn't work out with? What's so special about this man?" Arastoo wanted to know.

"He was an excellent lover," Angela tried to come to her friend's defense, but instead put herself in hot water. Her husband knew her just a little too well.

"Wait. Oh, Angie, no. Seriously? You too?" Hodgins stammered as he rose to his feet.

"No, I didn't say that," her voice trailed off and she realized that there was no way he was going to believe her now. "Fine. But it doesn't mean that I love you any less. I just, it was a first reaction, it didn't mean a thing. And even if I did travel into the past to be with him it wouldn't change our future. That's why I thought it was okay."

"I would love to go back to the day we first meet, to relive what has turned out to be the most significant day in my entire life but you, you would like to go back and have sex with your ex-husband again? I can't believe this."

"Hey, at least it's her ex, mine wants to have sex with him too and they were only together once."

Cam cleared her throat and stood up, "Excuse me, but do not refer to me as "yours" ever again. And secondly, it wasn't just once. It was just one night but it wasn't just once."

"That doesn't make me feel any better."

As the two couples continued to argue, Booth and Brennan sat by quietly observing the arguments. Brennan studying the conversations and making internal discussions as to what Cam and Angela's choices meant. Booth smirking at the two men and laughing to himself at their predicament.

At least he thought he had laughed to himself.

Cam heard him and quickly turned around, ready to use Booth and Brennan has a way of diverting attention away for herself. Surely their answers would help make the other two men realize that this was simply an innocent question and that it didn't make any difference in the grand scheme of how they loved one another.

"What's so funny Seeley?"

"Nothing." That was what he said, but his smile gave away his true answer.

Hodgins chimed in, "Okay, I bet the two of you had this conversation during the case too, what were your answers?"

"Booth said that he would like to stop the Lincoln assassination."

"That's noble. None of us said anything noble. Good going Booth, you're a better person than us," Hodgins said as he slummed back down on the couch.

"Hey, your words not mine." Booth threw up his hands in defense.

"What about you Sweetie? What would you do? Michael Stires? Sail off with Sully and see what would've happened?" Angela asked.

"No, I wouldn't want to travel back in time."

"Dr. Brennan that is not a real answer," Cam said.

"Yes it is. I have everything I need or could ever want right now. Right here. With Booth. I would not take a chance on traveling back in time and having the laws of causality change our fate. I've never been happier than I am right now."

The room grew silent, each person taking in her words. Booth's smile was so wide his face was in danger of busting.

"Well that's just sick," Cam said.

"Yeah, seriously, Dr. Brennan. " Arastoo joined in as he and Cam turned together to leave the room.

"Gag me Sweetie. Just gag me," Angela rolled her eyes as she too left the room.

Hodgins took a moment to examine the couple before shaking his head and then walked out behind his wife.

Booth and Brennan both just shrugged.


	4. The Corpse on the Canopy

He looked … well she couldn't quite place his look.

Which didn't sit well with her because even with all that she knew … the one thing she truly knew best … was him.

But as he sat across from her she couldn't put a name to the myriad of emotions that were crossing his face.

Disappointment.

Anger.

Resentment.

Fear.

Had she ever seen Seeley Booth truly afraid before? She searched the corners of her mind but came up empty .She hadn't. Not even the night before he sat out for his show down with Brodsky. The first night they'd spent together.

But Pelant wasn't Brodsky. He was more.

More evil.

More cunning.

More calculated.

And now he was more determined.

He killed without thought, without guilt, without any discernable shred of regard toward human life.

And they had no idea how to stop him.

He looked up and his sad eyes met her tear stained face.

She soothed the covers over their daughter one more time. Letting the baby sleep in the living room because somehow it felt safer.

She walked toward him and half crawled, half fell into his lap. Repeating her words from earlier. "Pelant doesn't want to kill me."

His voice was gruff, filled with a range of emotions that, like his expression, she couldn't even begin to name. "He does now."

He shifted her weight so that they were both sitting more comfortably and pulled her as tight to his side as he could, inhaling the scent of her shampoo as he rested his chin against her hair. "I almost got him. There was blood covering the inside of his windshield. He's pissed now. And he's going to come after us. And there's not a damn thing I can do to stop him."


	5. The Secret in the Proposal

Just a little drabble that popped into my head tonight. Set in the next season but free of any spoilers. I just used the title of the first episode here for consistency. Thanks to someonetookmyname for the read through!

Thank you for reading, and if any of you are waiting on an update to _The Story in the Box, _ I promise that I haven't given up on that story. Real life has just been crazy and I haven't been able to do that story the justice that it deserves. I hope to continue with it very soon.

Please let me know what you think!

* * *

She was lying across their bed, wearing a pair of pajama pants and a thin camisole that was riding up just enough to show a hint of the pale skin that lay beneath. He watched her from the doorway, his heart starting to heal as he realized that the stress that had been etched into her features since he had reneged on their engagement was gone.

He climbed onto the bed with her, letting his hand slide inside of her shirt traveling upward along the softness of her stomach to let his thumb caress the underside of her breast. He smiled as she opened her eyes at his touch.

"I didn't mean to wake you."

"I wasn't asleep."

"You should be, you're exhausted."

"As are you." They locked eyes, his hand still lingering beneath her shirt. "I'm sorry Booth."

His confusion was honest, "Why?"

"Because you had to take a life. I know what that does to you."

He sighed then, and pulled away from her only slightly, enough to get her attention. "This was different. No murder is justified Bones, but this one was different."

"Still, it takes something from you."

He shook his head, "No, not this time. I'm not giving him anything else, not even guilt over killing him. He nearly broke us."

"But he didn't."

He leaned back in, and wrapped her in his arms, his voice just above a whisper, "No, he didn't."

"Actually Booth I think perhaps we can thank him for something."

"You can't be serious."

She smiled, causing his head to swirl, trying to figure out what she was talking about.

"I never believed in love. I thought it was transient. You know that. And I thought that when you didn't want to get married, that it meant we had fallen out of love. But, now, I know. I look at everything he did to us. Everything he made us go through. And I realize that nothing can break us. Nothing. I'm not sure I ever would have understood that if we hadn't been tested."

Booth couldn't find the words to describe the mix of love and pride that he felt for the woman in his arms, "Damn," he shook his head as he rolled her over so that she was beneath him, "you amaze me."

And that night, for the first time since he had taken back his promise, he didn't feel guilty as they made love.


End file.
